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LUCASVILLE, Ohio — The state executed a condemned killer yesterday who calmly went to his death
still claiming he was innocent of stabbing a woman 138 times, slitting her throat and cutting off
her hands.

“I’m good, let’s roll,” Brett Hartman said in his final words.

He then smiled in the direction of his sister and repeatedly gave her, a friend and his attorney
a “thumbs up” with his left hand.

“This is not going to defeat me,” Hartman then said to warden Donald Morgan, who didn’t
respond.

The effect of the single dose of pentobarbital did not seem as immediate as in other executions
at the state prison near Lucasville, in southern Ohio. Four minutes after Hartman first appeared to
be reacting to it as his abdomen began to rise and fall, his abdomen rose and fell again, he
coughed and his head shifted rhythmically for a few moments.

His sister, Diane Morretti, dabbed at her eyes during the process. The warden declared Hartman’s
time of death as 10:34.

Both Hartman’s attorney, David Stebbins, and prisons system spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said the
gap between Hartman’s movements was not out of the ordinary.

Hartman was the 49th inmate put to death since Ohio resumed executions in 1999.

Hartman acknowledged that he had sex with Winda Snipes early Sept. 9, 1997, at her Akron
apartment. He also says he went back to Snipes’ apartment later that day, found her mutilated body
and panicked, trying to clean up the mess before calling 911.

But Hartman said he didn’t kill her, a claim rejected by numerous courts over the years.

A former co-worker and friend of Snipes’ who witnessed the execution said afterward that the
family was relieved the case was over and that the continuous rounds of appeals and media reports
were at an end. Jacqueline Brown of Doylestown in northeastern Ohio also flatly dismissed Hartman’s
innocence claim.

“He’s very, very, very guilty,” she said afterward. “Now Winda can be at peace, and that’s what
it’s all about.”

Stebbins read a statement from Hartman’s family in which they professed his innocence and asked
for additional testing of scene evidence.

“We hope that the taking of Brett’s innocent life might serve as a wake-up call to the flaws in
our legal system,” the statement said.